Examining coverage of news and sports using the rules of formal logic.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Mitch McConnell’s Heroic Fight Against Information

Mitch McConnell gave a compelling argument against a bill introduced in the US Senate to require campaign commercials to disclose their donors so that voters would know who supported them.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, accused Democrats of trying to rig the election. His suspicions were only heightened [by] the fact that [Senator Charles] Schumer, who authored the bill, used to chair the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee:

MCCONNELL: You talk about transparency. This is a transparent effort to rig the fall election.

There have been no hearings, no committee action; written by Senator Schumer, the former chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, riddled with special advantages for Democratic-leaning groups and punishment for Republican-leaning groups.

Senator McConnell continued: Even worse than helping elect others, Schumer may seek re-election himself. The fact that a Senator who might run for re-election could introduce this bill shows that it must have as its only goal that Senator's re-election. In fact, everything every single Senator says or does can only be understood as a political calculation whose purpose is to get him or her elected. I urge everyone then to consider everything any elected official or would-be elected official says to be false. We, as elected officials, are the only beneficiaries of all our actions. Do not trust anything any elected official says; everything we tell you is a lie.

The “Special advantages” to which McConnell refers are apparently for the notoriously Democratic-leaning National Rifle Association. As the article notes:

Not all organizations received the same treatment, however. For instance, the National Rifle Association would be exempt from the legislation.

When, oh when, will the NRA cease its relentless, partisan attacks on Republicans? Perhaps only when Republicans can pry its checkbook from its cold, dead hands.